- Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt sensationally accused Stephen Hawking of lying
- Professor Hawking said the NHS was changing towards a US-style system
- But Mr Hunt said he was making a ‘pernicious falsehood’ with the statement
Professor Hawking, a lifelong Labour supporter, accused Mr Hunt of ‘cherry picking’ evidence
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt sensationally accused Stephen Hawking of lying yesterday in a heated war of words over the future of the NHS.
Mr Hunt said Professor Hawking was guilty of making a ‘pernicious falsehood’ in claiming that the Government wanted to replace the National Health Service with a US-style system of medical insurance.
He was speaking ahead of last night’s lecture by the world-renowned scientist at the Royal Society of Medicine in London on the state of the Health Service. On Friday, the cosmologist claimed ‘that the direction of change [in the UK] is towards a US-style insurance system’.
Professor Hawking, a lifelong Labour supporter, also accused Mr Hunt of ‘cherry picking’ evidence in favour of seven-day working to help him push through the new junior doctors’ contract.
But in a string of tweets Mr Hunt hit back at Professor Hawking, who is director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at Cambridge University.
Mr Hunt said Professor Hawking was guilty of making a ‘pernicious falsehood’ in claiming that the Government wanted to replace the National Health Service with a US-style system
Mr Hunt wrote: ‘Most pernicious falsehood from Stephen Hawking is idea govt wants US-style insurance system. Is it 2 much to ask him to look at evidence?’
He added: ‘NHS under Cons[ervatives] has seen more money, more doctors and more nurses than ever in history. Those with private med[ical] insurance DOWN 9.4 per cent since 2009.’
Professor Hawking’s attack also criticised the Government for landing the NHS ‘in a crisis’ by ‘underfunding and cuts, privatising services, the public pay cap, the new contract imposed on junior doctors, and removal of the student nurses’ bursary.’